


Not Entirely French But Close Enough

by friendlyrejection



Category: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Genre: M/M, jim has The Gift and takes his bf to starbucks, lots of fluff and like emotions and shit, time and universe fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 17:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10576347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyrejection/pseuds/friendlyrejection
Summary: Jim tended to do things like that, or things like that tended to follow him; either way, the seams of reality were not as tightly knit as one would think.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is heavily inspired by Febricant's "work it out with your fingers" and the 7 other fics in the bart/jim tag. ive fallen for these cowboys and i cant get up

It had been a while since Blazing Saddles. About 40 years give or take. And to say that the Waco Kid and the Sheriff aged well was an understatement, they hadn't aged at all. Bart still had that same chiseled jaw and sloping profile; skin shining with sweat in the always hot sun. Jim had kept his diamond shaped eyes and quick draw, which had continued to get the duo out of trouble as much as trouble continued to find them. 

Jim tended to do things like that, or things like that tended to follow him; either way, the seams of reality were not as tightly knit as one would think. The memories of his childhood that hadn't been washed away with whiskey were peppered with cracks in the fabric of the universe. Nothing apocalyptic per se, but feeling the cool painted sunset of a sound stage wall might as well have been the end of the world as far as an eight year old was concerned. Often times he would end up places he had no business ending up in, with no idea how he got there. He got good at figuring out what was going on when what was going on should have made no reasonable amount of sense. If he tried really hard he could remember the first time he got off the lot, beautiful men and women in all manner of costume in every direction. Jim thought it wasn't too bad, it seemed people here wore less and less every time he came, and that's not something a 14 year old Jim could really complain about. He found that things would get more and more out of what little control Jim held over his perception when other people who Jim was, let's say, romantically involved with were around. There was little pattern to the type of person; sometimes men, sometimes women, sometimes somewhere in between, but all times they gave Jim sweaty palms and had him kneading at the felt of his hat. More often than not things ended disastrously. Trouble made sure Jim hadn’t had too nice things for too long, and Jim discovered his predilection for wandering. And his predilection for booze. 

The glory of having the fastest hands in the world faded much quicker along with his dignity after he was shot in the ass. With a life of fuck ups coupled with the knowledge that none of this really mattered (or barely existed at all), booze had become more and more attractive to Jim. Booze either tightened the seams of reality or made the cracks too blurry to see, which was fine by him as long as he was too drunk to get up. He had tried his role as the trick shot, but found playing the town drunk was much easier and suit him just as fine. Until the day he saw something more attractive than booze ever was. Jim was never very good with first impressions, but tangled upside down hanging from a jail cell bunk in his under pants was one he couldn't make worse if he tried. Good thing he was charming. 

The ability to make Bart laugh was the only good gift God had given him. He could use all the flowery words he could muster to describe the way he looked when he smiled, or the music of his laugh, or the way it made him feel to see Bart was smiling at _him_. He could say that all the pristine beauty of the west would never compare to the valleys of his smile. He could say he heard a chorus of angels in the rolling hills of his laugh. He could say it made him so confident, he felt like he could run out into the street and win a gunfight armed with nothing but a shoe. But the naked truth of the matter was that he could make Bart laugh, and that thought in and of itself was the most beautiful thing he’d ever known.

The more time he spent with Bart and the more time he spent sober, the more reality seemed to spill out of its container and crash through the tiny nowhere town of Rock Ridge. He considered cutting his losses before things got so bad that Bart wanted nothing to do with whatever it was Jim was doing, but after awhile it seemed that Bart was something of a conduit for it. Jim’s “skills” flowed out of him and through Bart, and were amplified by his quick wits and even quicker mouth. Hell, he took it in stride; Jim didn’t know if he had a propensity for such things or what happened when Jim was around was nothing next to the absurdity he dealt with on a daily basis being a black man in the American West. Whatever it was, the final confrontation in Rock Ridge broke so bad that the whole town spilled out onto another sound stage and into the back lot. It seemed all hell had broken loose, the pillars of reality had long been damaged but Jim was somehow able to dodge being crushed to death. A responsible man would have wanted to fix it, even attempt to, but all he could think about was Bart galloping down Olive Avenue like the damn hero he was. As they settled into the theater seats the two practically came together like magnets, their eyes glued to the screen as Bart gave his final speech. 

Bart was on his way out. Restless as he was with freedom at his back and power pinned to his chest, Jim figured it was only a matter of time. He didn't have a good reason as to why he didn’t go to the goodbye gathering, and he wasn't exactly sure why he had a bucket of popcorn in his hand either. He resigned to sticking in his place in the sun, lounging until whatever would happen next happened. But right on cue, Bart rode up and Jim didn’t even need to look up to know it was him.

“Where ya’ headed, cowboy?” Jim asked, the melancholy a little thicker in his voice than he might have wanted. 

“Nowhere special.” Bart replied matter-of-factly. Somewhere in his voice was the hint of a tease, maybe a challenge. All he had to do was take the bait. 

“Nowhere Special… I always wanted to go there.” It was the dumbest thing he’d ever said. It didn’t even count as a lie and it was barely an excuse. It was complete nonsense, and Jim should know. But whatever language he was speaking, Bart seemed to be fluent.

And then, here they were. Still criss-crossing the desert, saving towns and shooting the bad guys. They’d been to Nowhere Special and back, seen Hell and swam high water, visited the edge of existence and sat there for a smoke, laughing in the face of their tenuous grip on reality. 

More specifically they were trotting through what looked like the Mojave. It was the height of summer and Bart was practically melting on his horse, his horse melting along with him. Jim reached for his canteen, found it was empty, and reached for Bart’s, finding that one empty too. Jim knew he wasn’t dying but it sure as shit felt like it, and knew he had to do something. 

“C’mon, let's get outta here.” Jim said, flapping the front of his shirt as a weak attempt to cool off and failing miserably. 

“Outta _here…?_ ” Bart asked in between shallow breaths.

“Yeah, it's been too long.” and Jim mustered as much energy as he could from him and his horse and took off, looking back to make sure Bart was catching up. They rode as fast as their horses could carry them towards the edge of the lot. They took a right on Olive and a left on Screenland, and hitched their horses to a lamp post outside the Starbucks. There were two things Jim would miss if he never found the backlot again, one of them was air conditioning. 

They fell into the coffee shop, garnering the looks they’d gotten used to (although maybe not for the reason they’re thinking) and Bart plopped into a chair at a two person table. Jim ordered and asked for cups of water while they waited and paid with soggy dollar bills. As soon as he sat down they emptied their cups and they both laughed at the feeling of this thirst finally quenched while a young woman with an up-do covertly took a picture. A man behind the counter was kind enough to bring them their drinks: large cups of icy slush topped with whipped cream. This was the second thing he would miss.

“What’s this one?” Bart asked, looking over his drink before taking a sip.

“A frappuccino, I got you strawberry.” Jim took a long drink from his mocha, savoring the chill as it went down his throat.

Bart tumbled the word around his tongue, “Frapp-u-cci-no. French?”

“No… No I don’t think so.”

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah if anyone has any blazing saddles fanzines from 1978 please contact me


End file.
